PORTLAND, December 2, 2012 — The Lewis and Clark Public Interest Law Project (PILP) is pleased to announce the date and location of its 23rd annual auction. The event will be held Friday, February 8th starting at 5:30 PM at the Multnomah Athletic Club, the first time the event has been held off-campus.

Andrew King, Kathryn McNeill, and Sandra Gustitus, Lewis and Clark Law students and the Auction Co-Directors, noted, “The move off-campus is an effort to expand the scope and significance of this important fundraising event and make it available to more of our alumni and supporters who work downtown.” PILP, a student-run organization at Lewis & Clark Law School founded in 1990, has helped 260 students finance legal public interest work at no cost to their employers – a total of more than 100,000 hours of legal work by PILP stipend recipients.

Dana Gross, a 2012 stipend recipient, said with respect to her experience working at the Alameda County Public Defender’s Office, “My most cherished experiences involved working with clients individually, and making my first appearances in court on their behalf. Weekly, I advocated for clients struggling to become or remain in compliance with court-mandated services, like AA meetings or domestic violence counseling. I assisted clients in negotiating restitution agreements, and helped resolve cases. I helped homeless court prepare for its every-other-month date at a local homeless shelter. I also ran motions to release clients on their own recognizance, to enforce the right to speedy trial, and to suppress evidence that was gathered in violation of the Fourth Amendment.”

“PILP also has a broad reach,” said Bill Penn, the Director of Public Interest Law at Lewis & Clark. “While about half of the PILP stipend recipients over the past 22 years have helped host organizations right here in Oregon, they also help all over the country, and around the world. PILP has given stipends to students working as far away as The Hague and Yap, Micronesia. In its history, PILP has raised over a million dollars and given out almost all of it in summer stipends.”

“Last year, the 2012 PILP auction raised $83,500, granting summer stipends to nineteen students so they could accept internships at organizations such as Youth, Rights & Justice; Legal Aid Services of Oregon; St. Andrew Legal Clinic; Federal Public Defenders; Southern Environmental Law Center; and Columbia Riverkeeper,” said the Co-Directors. “The stipend recipients helped underrepresented people and causes receive the legal assistance they need.”

“With shrinking non-profit and government budgets, PILP has seen the demand for stipends grow”, Penn said. “Last year, though PILP funded an unprecedented nineteen stipends, there were also eighteen applications that went unfunded. The more PILP raises, the more students can help public interest causes and the 250,000 Oregonians estimated to be unable to afford an attorney by a 2000 Oregon State Bar. The more students PILP can support, the more Lewis & Clark graduates will have the experience to help underrepresented people and causes for years to come.”

“I have seen students return empowered by the difference they have made,” Penn noted, “and I have seen those students go on to thrive in tough, low-paid public service careers after graduation.”